Room 209
by neoxphile
Summary: During the last week of October Scully is asked to take over the case of a comatose little boy. Strange things begin to happen in Our Lady of Sorrows soon after.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Room 209  
>Author: Neoxphile<br>Category: Halloween fic; crossover (X-Files/Insidious); challenge fic; post-IWTB/mid-Insidious

~ Written for Bump In The Night and The Nursery Files' Crossover Challenge  
><em>There's still time to write your own! PM me for details<em>

Summary: During the last week of October Scully is asked to take over the case of a comatose little boy. Strange things begin to happen in Our Lady of Sorrows soon after.

Author's note: **Insidious** just says Dalton is in the hospital for three months before his parents bring him home to care for there without spelling out what time of year it is...or _why_ they bring him back home.

* * *

><p>Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital<br>October 25, 2010

Leaves blew across the parking lot, still the similar in color to the hair of the doctor they were landing on instead of the rusty brown they would progress to after the groundskeeper managed to rake them in a submissive pile. At that very moment he was elsewhere on the property, leaving the woman to battle them on her own.

Frowning to herself, Dr. Dana Scully batted them out of her face and wondered if they were going to get one of those later season hurricanes that the weather channel kept droning on about whenever her husband got so absorbed in what he was doing that he forgot to turn off the TV when he left the room.

Her frown turned to a faint smile when she thought the word "husband." She and Mulder had decided that one good way to fight the darkness was to forge a more permeant union between them. Their feelings had never wavered, but the injuries that he had sustained while trying to help the FBI a couple of years earlier had reminded her that the law didn't care about their steadfast devotion to each other, but a marriage license would enforce either's ability to make medical decisions for the other if either was even more badly hurt. To that end they'd been married on December 23rd in 2008, so they were fast approaching their second anniversary.

"Doctor Scully?" a hesitate voice behind her asked and she jumped like someone had grabbed her because her mind was entirely on Mulder to the point that she hadn't noticed that she'd almost reached the doors of the hospital.

It was hard to say whose face was more red with embarrassment when she twisted around to see who had spoken. "Sister Ignatius," Scully said politely, realizing that she recognized the nurse behind her. They'd only spoken once but the young nun was shorter than she was which was enough of a novelty to be memorable. When the other woman just rang her hands without saying anything, Scully felt obligated to prompt her. "What can I do for you?"

To her dismay the nun's face immediately fell. "Oh," she began awkwardly, "I'm not sure you can. I mean, Father Ybarra..."

Scully bristled reflexively when the nurse brought up the idea that the priest would prevent her from doing something: shortly after she'd cured Christian and she and Mulder had concluded their involvement in the Monica Bannon case, she'd considered leaving Our Lady of Sorrows. Mulder hadn't told her what to do, but he had asked her why she wanted to flee, and she'd finally decided that she wasn't going to let the man have the satisfaction of driving her away. Still, she and Ybarra didn't get along much better two years later.

Sister Ignatius continued to look anxious, so Scully forced herself to smile. "Tell me what it is you need, and we'll worry about Father Ybarra after that."

If this made Ignatius feel better, she hid it well. The woman wrung her hands and looked down. "We have a patient, admitted two months ago, and I was hoping that you'd take over his care."

"Who is caring for him now?" Scully asked warily. There had to be more to the story - they wouldn't have admitted the child without assigning him a doctor, so someone must be overseeing his case at the moment.

"Doctor Guillen."

"Oh." Scully knew Marjorie Guillen well enough to realize that the other woman wouldn't really tolerate Scully asking for her case. Doctor Guillen was an extremely competent woman about a decade older than she was, so she couldn't imagine that the child wasn't already in good hands, anyway.

Still, she had to be polite when she responded to the request. "Sister, you understand that I have no authority to demand, or even request, that another doctor give me their case-" she began.

"She doesn't want it!" Ignatius blurted out. Then she blushed again. A not very kind part of Scully wondered if she'd been drawn to her vows because it would limit her social interactions, which were obviously awkward.

"She doesn't like him?" Scully guessed. Even after working at the hospital as long as she had, it still surprised her how many doctors who worked with children simply didn't like them. There had been teachers in her own elementary school who had clearly had similar ideas, and she still couldn't understand why one would go into a profession where they had a lot of interaction with people they didn't like. It seemed sad to her, and not just for the sake of the children. She didn't know Guillen well enough to know how she felt about the kids in her care, but she did know that the other doctor was childless.

"No, nothing like that," the young nun said hurriedly. "You can't like him."

Scully raised her eyebrows, wondering if she was being asked to take on the case of a notorious brat. That was less than flattering: up until that second she'd been under the hopeful impression that her expertise is what recommended her, not her tolerance for misbehavior.

Apparently Ignatius realized that she'd given the wrong impression, because she looked down and gently shook her head. "Dalton is never awake to bother anyone, you see," she explained.

"He's comatose?"

To her mild surprise, the nun disagreed. "Doctor Guillen says he's not in a coma."

"A vegetative state?" Scully asked as gently as she could. To have to ask that reminded her uncomfortably of the very first case she'd worked with Mulder. She never really had forgiven the ward nurse they'd spoken to for making a produce aisle joke.

"I'm not a doctor." Ignatius bit her lower lip. "But I heard doctor Guillen said that his brain scans are fine." Eventually she looked up. "She doesn't know why he won't wake up."

"Huh." Scully thought about this for a moment, and realized that there was a spark of excitement already building within her as she began to brainstorm reasons why a child wouldn't wake despite not fitting the technical description for coma.

"Doctor Guillen was hesitant to approach you-"

"Why?" Scully demanded to know.

The nurse shrugged, and the wind caught at her habit, making the black fabric ripple in a way that reminded Scully of crows. "You seem busy."

"All doctors are busy," Scully replied. "If she wants to speak to me, I'll hear her out."

"Oh, good." There was something that sounded suspiciously like relief in the other woman's voice, and Scully began to wonder if it was possible that Guillen and the young nun were friends, which would make Ignatius's concern more understandable.

The idea did leave her faintly envious, though. Father Ybarra aside, Scully had a cordial enough relationship with all of her coworkers, but she didn't count any of them as friends.

"I'll let her know I spoke to you," Ignatius added.

"Right," Scully said with a forced smile.

* * *

><p>The unusual conversation faded from Scully's mind as she checked on one of her patients. Sydney Campbell greeted her with a shaky wave as she entered the room, and Scully offered her a warm smile in return.<p>

Sydney was a pretty seventh grader with long curly brown hair and matching brown eyes. She'd been a perfectly average child until one morning she'd begun to display symptoms of a neurological disorder that was eventually diagnosed as subacute sclerosing panencephalitis; something that began to make sense once it emerged that she hadn't been vaccinated against the measles because her parents didn't believe in vaccinations. Compounding the girl's issues, they'd also hadn't sought treatment for her until she'd entered the second stage of the disease - it was treatable if diagnosed in stage one, but generally accepted to be fatal if not treated before stage two.

Consumed with guilt, her parents were seeking out all avenues of treatment for her, and surprisingly, Father Ybarra had authorized Scully to try even unconventional ones. Sydney had only been admitted a few days earlier, so Scully was still researching things that might help her.

"How are you doing today?" Scully asked the girl even as she began to take her vitals.

Sydney's response was to shrug.

Looking towards the window, Scully cast about for something else to talk about because she sensed that the girl would shut down if she continued to prod her about how she was feeling. Bringing the girl up for an EEG could wait a couple of minutes while she tried to improve their rapport. "I hear that they're going to show Hocus Pocus in the lounge tonight," Scully offered. "Do you think that you'll be up for watching it?"

"That's for babies," Sydney said dismissively. Her speech was still relatively clear, which was one of the reasons that Scully had agreed to try to find an approach that would help the girl survive the disease. Her mental deterioration was also mild as of yet, which was the only other hopeful sign that she might retain a reasonably good quality of life if Scully found a way to help her.

"You better not tell my husband that," Scully replied. "He loves that movie."

The teenager gave her a skeptical look. "He sounds weird."

"You have no idea." Scully smirked, glad that he wasn't there to hear his taste in movies besmirched. "He also likes that Ed Wood movie, Plan Nine from Outer Space."

When she looked up she noticed that Sydney's expression was blank, and for a fraction of a second she thought that the girl wasn't familiar with the cult classic, but it quickly occurred to her that Sydney was beginning to have a seizure.

Before the girl could begin to thrash around, Scully calmly made sure that there was nothing around Sydney that would injure her, and wrote off her plan to get an updated scan of the girl's brain. It would have to wait for a more opportune moment. She just hoped that Sydney had a lot of those left.

* * *

><p><em>an: I can't promise I'll finish writing this before Halloween but I'll sure try_


	2. Chapter 2

Scully was in her office writing up notes on Sydney's case when there was a firm knock on her door. She was only mildly surprised to see doctor Guillen looking in at her. Sydney's crisis had driven her conversation with the nun out of her mind.

"Good afternoon," Scully politely greeted her colleague.

"I understand that Sarah spoke to you about Dalton Lambert today-" Guillen said, and it took Scully a moment to associate the name Sarah with the young nun. When she finally did, it made her more sure that there was a warm relationship between the two women. "-and I wanted to apologize for not speaking to you myself before she did."

Scully motioned towards the extra chair for visitors, and Guillen sat down. "Don't worry about it. I took it as a sign that she cares."

"I'm glad to hear that. Sarah definitely is concerned about the well-being of all the patients she helps to care for."

"That's an excellent quality in a nurse," Scully remarked, thinking about how much more time the average person spent with nurses compared to doctors.

"And a friend," Guillen acknowledged.

"True."

"What Sarah told you is also true - I was hoping that you'd take over Dalton's care."

"Do you mind me asking why?" Scully asked point-blank. "Why me in particular, I mean."

Guillen looked thoughtful. "I'm afraid that nothing in my own bag of tricks is making any difference in Dalton's condition, and you have something of a reputation for pulling off miracles."

"I do?" she asked reflexively, wondering if this was one of the reasons that Father Ybarra couldn't stand her. Not that she thought he didn't care about patients, but the fact that she'd pulled off a miracle after he'd written a child off as terminal probably didn't sit well with him especially if other people found her cure a point of admiration.

"Don't be so self-effacing," Guillen advised. "At any rate, if anyone here can help Dalton, I think it will be you."

"What can you tell me about him?" Scully asked. "Sarah-" The word felt awkward to her mouth. "-didn't tell me much beyond he's unconscious and you don't think it's a coma."

"I don't," Guillen admitted. "Nor did the first hospital he was in."

"First hospital?"

"He was in a local hospital for a couple of weeks before he was transferred here," Guillen told her. "They were baffled and hoped that we'd have better luck." Guillen eyed her and then added, "I wonder if perhaps you're partly responsible for a solid enough reputation for the parents to be willing for him to be transferred so far away."

Scully's eyes widened in dismay when the other doctor went on to explain how far from home Dalton Lambert currently was. "...anyway, from all accounts Dalton was a normal ten-year-old boy until he and his family moved into their new home. A few days after they moved in, Dalton took a short fall from a ladder while exploring the attic. He only reported injuring his arm, but he couldn't be roused the next morning."

"He'd also gotten a head injury when he fell," Scully suggested.

"No," Guillen disagreed. "At least none of the main imaging studies done were unable to find any sign of one." The older doctor sighed. "There doesn't seem to be any physiological reason that Dalton is unconscious."

"Sister Ignatius said that you don't feel that he's in a coma," Scully offered tentatively.

"He isn't," Guillen said insistently. "There's significant brain activity in all the scans. It most resembles that of someone who is in a dream state, but there are some patterns I've never seen before."

"Interesting."

"Would you like to meet him?" Guillen asked, and Scully was reminded of the nun's assertion that it wasn't possible to like the boy.

She thought this over carefully, realizing that if she agreed it would be tantamount to agreeing to take over the case. "Yes."

* * *

><p>Room 209<p>

"He's down this way," Guillen said as Scully followed her down a hallway. It wasn't part of the hospital that Scully visited often, so she was glad to be led there rather than have to admit that she might not find the room without asking directions. Given that the hospital was old and had unexpectedly rambling corridors, she supposed that she shouldn't feel too embarrassed not to have memorized the complete floor plan, but still...

The room numbers in this part of the hospital were somewhat hard to read on what was quickly becoming an increasingly gloomy autumn afternoon, at least judging by the fitful light coming in from the high windows, so she was confused when they came to what seemed like an abrupt stop. "Here we are." When Scully peered at the door a passing cloud made it difficult to read the numbers 209 and she was left wondering if maintenance realized that the bulbs in the light overhead were on the verge of dying.

Guillen waved at the doorway, clearly expecting that Scully would enter the room first, so she did.

As Scully anticipated, there was a pall over the boy's room. She was slightly surprised to see fewer tubes than she expected - but his chest rose and fell in a steady fashion, so there was no ventilator. In a way this made her sadder for him because it gave the impression that he was simply napping and might sit up and greet them at any time.

In a way she was glad that he didn't begin chatting with them, because as she often was around boys of a certain age, she began to wonder if Dalton looked at all like her own son. It was possible, she decided, given that the boy's hair color wasn't so different than Mulder's. William's hair had been towheaded the last time she'd seen him, but the dearth of blonds in their families left her wondering if it had eventually darkened to brown... or red.

"Hello, Dalton," she said into the abnormal hush, but she didn't expect, or get, a reply in return.

She would never admit it to the other doctor, but the old shopworn phrase "the lights are on but nobody's home" went through her mind as she observed the child. Maybe it was because his situation was relatively new that he looked like he was merely sleeping. There hadn't been time for his muscles to atrophy, and for him to become as frail looking as you might expect somebody in a long-term coma to be.

Eventually she noticed that Guillen was looking at her. Frowning slightly, she asked "are you giving me this case because you think it's hopeless?"

Guillen returned her frown, crow's feet crinkling sharply. "Maybe not under the right physician's care."

A wave of unwelcomed doubt washed over Scully as she wondered, not for the first time, if she was really meant to work with people who were still living. Mulder was not the only person who thought that she had some sort of special fortitude for being able to work with the dead, but something she never admitted was that working with the dead was easier. You never had to worry about malpractice if your patient didn't have a pulse. The people she worked with here however, could actually be harmed if she made the wrong choices.

"What is he like?" She asked to distract herself.

"Like?" Guillen asked cautiously. It was clear that she didn't understand her question.

Bending to smooth Dalton's blanket, Scully thought for a moment, wondering how she could explain what she meant. "Did anyone give you his history? An inkling of what he was like before he ended up here."

Guillen's wariness abated. "I only got to speak to his parents once, but it was clear that they are quite fond of him. Dalton is the oldest of three, with a little brother a couple of years younger than him, and the baby sister who is only a few months old. He hadn't been excited about moving into their new house, but apparently he was beginning to settle into his new fifth grade class, and was telling his parents that he wanted to be Superman for Halloween."

For some reason this reminded Scully of herself. Some kids didn't really begin to formulate ideas about what they wanted to be for Halloween until the month of October, but she herself generally knew exactly what she wanted to be by the end of August. Giving the boy a faint smile, she said "oh, he's a planner."

"Seems to be," Guillen agreed. "He also liked to draw." The other woman paused, then looked chagrined. "_Likes_ to draw," she corrected herself.

Still, that told Scully more than she wanted to know. _Guillen truly must think that there is no hope_, she decided. But, as a veteran of hopeless situations that miraculously turned around, Scully herself was not willing to give up on him quite so soon. "I be happy to take over his case."

The relief on Guillen's face was difficult to read. Was she pleased that Dalton would have Scully's expertise on his side? Or was she just glad that if Dalton never woke the failure would not be a black mark against herself?

In the end, Scully decided it didn't matter. She wasn't taking on Dalton's case for the other doctor, she was taking it on for him.

* * *

><p>On the way home, Scully stopped at the grocery store, intending to pick up candy for trick or treaters. Unsurprisingly, she left with a nice steak, potatoes, and a bag of sunflower seeds for her husband.<p>

The drive home from the grocery store only took a few minutes, but somehow it seemed to take an eternity. Other drivers seemed to be deliberately trying to irritate her. So it was a vast relief to finally pull into the driveway of her own home.

And after such a long day it was also a relief to strip off her jacket and leave her briefcase by the front door. Before she could see or hear Mulder, her nose had already identified what he was cooking.

"Is that you, Scully?" his voice called from the kitchen.

'Bat ears,' she mumbled to herself. Smiling to herself, she made her way towards the sound of his voice." what if it wasn't?" she asked.

He popped his head through the doorway to the kitchen. "Then I would be forced to subdue you with this can of spray cheese," he said, hefting the can in his hand. The cap was off.

"Be careful with that thing," Scully told him. "I can see that the safety-is off."

"It's no good with the safety on."

"Tell me you're not using that stuff on our dinner." It couldn't possibly improve fried chicken, she thought.

"Nah. I'm drawing spider webs with it."

"On what?"

"Crackers."

"Right..."

He finally moved out of the doorway so she could pass through. "So, how was your day, dear?" Mulder put the can down on the counter next to a plate of crackers that might be said to look like they had webs on them if you were particularly imaginative.

Scully looked up from his culinary art project and noticed that he was waiting for a response. "Oh. I took on a new case today."

''Anything interesting?"

She sat at the table and shrugged. "It's a little boy who won't wake up. For no apparent reason." Scully paused at he set their plates down and took a seat himself. "And I do mean no obvious reason - he doesn't fit the criteria for coma."

"So basic he's sleeping," Mulder surmised.

She thought about the brain scans Guillen had shared with her. "He does seem to be dreaming."

"It must be some dream if he doesn't want to wake up."

"Hmm."

Mulder stopped cutting and gave her a long look. "How old is he?"

"Dalton is ten."

"I wonder if his parents are big readers," he mused.

She almost asked him what he meant before remembering the bookstore chain that had gone extinct over the last few years. "Maybe. I haven't met them."

"He reminds you of William," Mulder said suddenly.

"You think a chronically unconscious preteen reminds me of a child I haven't seen since before he could walk?" she asked testily. Her fork and knife rattled when she dropped them on to her plate.

"Doesn't he?" Mulder challenged.

This made her sigh. "Yes." Most boys within a year or two of William's age did.

He just nodded. Then he surprised her by asking, "Are you having second thoughts about our plan?"

Their plan.

Just after they freed Mulder from jail and went on the run, they discussed what Mulder had learned at Mount Weather and what it meant in regards to William's safety. Even then, with the knowledge of the coming invasion's date, they already knew what their roles would be if humanity had to put up a fight for survival: they would be on the front line. It would be unconscionable for two people who had their level of specialized knowledge to sit out the battle. Even if it meant saying goodbye to the possibility of getting their son back.

So that was the biggest area of discussion between them; even if they took advantage if the fact that the legality of the adoption could be fought (by Mulder) on the basis that he hadn't signed his rights away, the future wasn't going to change. Being with them would have painted a bright target on William's back when it all hit the proverbial fan in 2012, if not sooner. This was so vastly unfair to William that they'd decided that they wouldn't try to contact him until, and if, the invasion happened.

Mulder's friend Danny had taken two years to do it, but he'd eventually located William's adopted family. Once he had, Danny had suggested that they could hire a PI to take photos of the boy and his parents, but she and Mulder had not gone through with it. Mulder might have other reasons for not wanting to see pictures of William, but she herself was worried that seeing him in full color, even covertly, would erode her resolve to leave him be unless the time came that he really needed them.

"No, Mulder," she replied at last. "We both know he's safer where he is."

"For now," Mulder told her.

The thought of that changing amidst a crisis made make her blood pressure rise anxiously. "For now," she agreed. They'd do their damnedest to help him if anything changed.

"How are your other patients doing?" Mulder asked in an obvious ploy to change the subject.

She didn't feel like steering it back to the topic of William. "Not too bad. I'm a little worried about Sydney after she had a seizure today, though..."


End file.
